was in the air and smashing against the tiny Bumblebee. The crack of impact was shattering, thunderous, echoing off the mountains. I immediately understood the necessity of the thunderstorm.
Both planes hung in mid-air briefly before falling down towards the surrounding forest.
"So is that Emmett's point?" I asked, my forehead creased with questioning.
"Wait," Esme cautioned, watching intently, one hand raised. Emmett was a blur of dancing and slapping his rear, Carlisle shadowing him. I realized Fredward was missing.
"Fredward!" Esme cried in a clear voice. I stared in disbelief as Fredward sprang from the trees swinging his Spruce Goose like a club at the tangle of airplanes, setting off a nebula of explosions, his wide grin visible even to me.
"Emmett throws the hardest," Esme explained, "but Fredward swings the hardest."
The game continued before my incredulous eyes. It was impossible to keep up with the speed at which the airplanes flew, the rate at which their sleek bodies smashed into each other and blew apart.
I learned the other reason they waited for a thunderstom to play when Jasper, trying to avoid Fredward's infallible swinging, threw a knuckler toward Carlisle. Carlisle chucked a Gulf Stream at it and then raced Jasper to ground zero. When they collided in the middle of the explosion, the sound was like the crash of two massive boulders meeting in the middle of an atomic bomb. I jumped up in concern, but they were somehow unscathed.
"Safe," Esme called in a calm voice.
Emmett was up by one—Rosalie the closest second from flitting around the field and tagging small fliers—when Fredward caught the third missed pitch-plane and ending the inning. He sprinted to my side, sparkling like an excited diamond.

371

Chapter 17

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